


A Dandelion Wish

by RebrandedBard



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, EDIT: now with beta, Fix-It, I had to fix it, M/M, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Temporary Character Death, The Mountain Break-Up, no beta we die like men and get our shit wrecked in the comments, the old gods are kind of assholes lol, which is NOT at all how this started but enough people yelled at me so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 22:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30096303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebrandedBard/pseuds/RebrandedBard
Summary: Jaskier was once called Dandelion, put on this earth to grant a single wish as a test set forth by the gods. When Geralt asked life to give him one blessing, he never expected life to answer back. How can he ask for a wish ungranted?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 21
Kudos: 282





	A Dandelion Wish

“Dandelion,” Geralt repeated.

“That’s right.”

“Then why call yourself Jaskier when we met?”

Jaskier looked off into the distance, staring somewhere beyond the trees and farmlands that lay below. The campfire flickered and cracked, the wood hissing, popping between them. Its light cast long shadows over his face, aging that which would never grow old enough to wrinkle.

“I suppose I wanted to escape it. To become something else,” he said. He twiddled the buttercup between his fingers, regarding it with a wistful air. “I’d rather I were something poisonous. Something not to be used. A buttercup doesn’t disappear quite so easily. I’d wish it, but I can’t use the wish myself. It is meant for someone else.”

“Is it a curse?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier shook his head. “No. It’s worse than that, I’m afraid. It’s my nature. My purpose in all this. I’m here to give one wish, to see it granted, and to disappear. I don’t know who sent me or why, or for whom the wish is meant, but that’s my lot. I suppose destiny will make itself known in time.”

“That’s a shit lot,” Geralt said.

“It is. Yes, I suppose it is rather shit to be made something so undesirable, to be nothing but a tool for the use of others, no destiny of your own but that which you can scrape together between the hours.”

Geralt looked at him from the corner of his eye. The meaning was not lost on him. “Do you have to grant the wish when it comes?” he asked. He could not imagine Jaskier being forced into anything he did not choose. Were dandelions not also stubborn, impossible to be rid of? Impossible to control?

Jaskier looked back. All he could offer was a shrug in reply. “Melitele knows,” he said.

A dandelion is an unwanted thing. It is taken only by those starving in hard times, a desperate nourishment, last chosen. Romantic fools will croon over them, but still those romantic hands will tear them from the stem to be used as an accessory to a passing fancy, soon to be left somewhere to be pressed and forgotten between the pages of poems or left withered alone, just as forgotten in a vase, in a corner, as a cast-off in the fields where children play fickle games.

What good is a dandelion? What harm? If it is not a pest, it is too insignificant to be bothered with. It is nothing. It is torn to pieces to grant a wish.

“If life could grant me one blessing,” Geralt said, “it would be to take you off my hands.”

Jaskier stood above him, looking down with his strange eyes, his expression hollow and far away. He clenched his hands at his sides. He set his jaw and nodded. And it was like nothing at all to speak, the words drifting soft on the wind.

“If that is your wish.”

And he was gone, as if he’d been plucked from the world by the hands of a careless god. He left nothing in his wake, just as he’d never been. Nothing but a wide-eyed disbelief and a sudden chill in Geralt’s blood.

* * *

“Give him back,” Geralt snarled, kneeling at the altar of Melitele. The altar carved in the rugged mountain tomb was cold despite the many torches hung from the high walls. Their light flickered down upon him, his shadow waving like a heavy flag upon the floor. His hands were clenched, his head bent to the icy tiles below, though it was not in reverence that he lowered himself. He sneered, eyes screwed tightly to guard the heated pricking behind of unshed tears. Tears of mourning and regret. Tears of fury.

In hateful subjugation he bent before the effigy of the goddess. He made himself the lowest, the humblest of her subjects—though he was none of hers. He acquiesced to the demands of the faith. Anything to make her listen. For the barest chance she might hear his plea.

“I’ve learnt my lesson, so let my _apply_ it,” he said, hissing through his clenched teeth. “Return him to me. Let me appreciate him as you would have me do.”

The effigy towered above him, silent and deaf.

Geralt curled further in on himself. His knuckles cracked as they slid against the tile. “It wasn’t a wish,” he whispered. The words were strained, the last of his resolve breaking. They were words of anger, empty and impulsive. That wasn’t the way wishing was done. But he knew that wasn’t true. That was how the djinn had granted his wishes, both times born of careless words. Wishing never brought any good. Wishes were traps set by the hands of cruel gods.

“It wasn’t a true wish,” he said.

With bleary eyes, Geralt lifted his head. His neck cricked and his muscles pulled. For hours he’d kept the position, from dawn to dusk, never moving, never looking upon the visage. A cool, wet wind blew from the entrance of the tomb, bringing the fresh scent of night air. He breathed it in, watched it stir the offering on the dais before him.

The dandelions, yellow and white, ruffled in the wind.

“What was he for?” Geralt looked up at the statue’s eyes. The goddess stared back, expression as hard as the stone from which she’d been carved. “What was the point of sending him to snatch him away? Why was _that_ the wish?”

She gave no answer.

Geralt slammed his fists down on the platter, the dandelions flying into the air with a great crash. “What was he _for!”_ Geralt thundered. “Why was he for _me_ if I could not have him!”

A dandelion stalk landed beside his fist, its head blown free of its seeds. He scooped it up tenderly in his hands. It was a fragile thing. It offered nothing; no nourishment, no romance, no wish. One could not even blow it to tell the hour. But he clutched it to his chest, whispered his apologies. It had been his own hand that upset the platter, and by his hand it had been made barren. A hot tear trailed down the side of his face, then another.

“I wish …”

The cold air whispered the start of winter outside. He would have to make the pilgrimage home alone this year. There would be no friendly parting at the post. There would be no one from whom to withhold that offer that died in his throat. There would be no one waiting there come the first breath of spring.

Geralt opened his hands, saw the poor, mangled stalk lying within. Another thing ruined in his blindness. He reached meekly for the platter, slid it back into place, and set the stalk upon it. With a finger, he turned the bulb of it upward to face its maker.

“I wish he’d been a buttercup,” he said. “I wish he were poisonous that I might have a reason for this aching. I didn’t know that I—how could I have _known_ that I—!”

Geralt pressed his head to the floor again, choking on his words. Why would anyone grant the wish of a witcher? Of any witcher, why should he deserve it? Of all wishes, why grant one so meaningless? It was unfair to Jaskier. To Dandelion. To whatever name the gods had given him. Jaskier had _wanted_ ; he’d been so _human._ He ought never to have been a device.

“Give him back,” Geralt whispered. “Please. I wish you’d give him back to me.” Let him grant one wish himself and give Jaskier the only thing he ever asked.

“Let me see him to the coast.”

* * *

Dandelions popped out of the snow in his wake. Once a day, he was sure of finding a bit of yellow and green among the blanket of white that suffocated the countryside. Even as he trudged his way up the Killer, there were dandelions in the pass. They seemed almost to turn their heads at his passing, tilt them questioningly. “Why?” they asked. “Why should you have your wish?”

“Because I’m sorry. Because I did not see what I had in front of me.” Geralt muttered countless answers into the empty air. None of them would satisfy the “Why, why, why?” that hung unspoken. “Because I’m tired. Because the world is changed irrevocably.” Because, because, because.

Yet another dandelion turned to look after him, the second in a long day, following his path up the steep climb. Geralt slipped in the wet slush and did not raise himself. The loose snow toppled over him, the cold sting of a branch welting his cheek. He dropped his head in the snow and sighed, the dandelion eye to eye before him.

“Why?” it begged of him, the meekest of the lot, as if it had long grown tired of asking.

Geralt closed his eyes. “I’ll never have a reason good enough,” he said. “There’s no apology or excuse that will undo it. There’s no promise to wipe the slate clean.” But he did not ask for a clean slate. He’d take it smudged or cracked or split into jagged pieces if only he could reassemble those pieces into something at all like they’d once been.

Why? That was simple enough.

Geralt opened his eyes. He gently lifted his hand, wiping a bit of snow from the dandelion with one careful finger. “Because I love him,” he said. “I want him. That’s the only reason I can give.”

The dandelion withered under his touch, turning a dry, lifeless grey. It shrivelled to a stalk, then disappeared. Geralt stared in horror. He sat up and dug into the snow where it had stood only moments before. There was no trace of it to be found.

“What does … what does that mean?”

He looked round at the empty forest. He lifted himself, turned over to look behind. “And?” he shouted. “What does it mean! _Answer_ me!”

When no answer came, he scooped the snow from the spot and threw it. It turned to powder in the air. “Answer me! Answer my wish you—! Fuck! _Damn you, where is he!”_

He could not have even this shadow of him. Long into the night, he trudged his way up the pass, his eyes on the watch for any further dandelions. Roach nudged him, concerned, but he would not look at her. It was only when she refused to move on that he stopped for the night. She knew the pass well, knew that they had come to the cave which marked their sanctuary. They would arrive at Kaer Morhen’s gate by midmorning.

Geralt collapsed just inside, not bothering to lay out his bedroll. Roach shuffled uncomfortably at his side, anxious to have her tack removed. It was her fussing that pulled Geralt from his melancholy, and he dutifully rose to take her burden. He covered her in her blanket, but when the time came for his own rest, he did not light a fire, nor did he cover himself with anything more than he had already. He lay staring out at the snowfall until he could remember to breathe. He’d forgotten how between the day and the night. Just as well if he never did remember.

He must have fallen asleep, for he became conscious of the morning light as suddenly as blinking. The cave still echoed with nonsensical mutterings. He’d not spoken in his sleep for many years, but he heard himself now, countless apologies falling from his lips. Roach nudged his cheek and he was truly awake, Jaskier’s name cut off in the stream.

Geralt reached up and wrapped his arms around Roach’s thick muzzle. He buried his face against her forehead, hiding from the light. “I’m alright,” he said. He shook his head, burying his face deeper still. “No, I’m not alright … but I’m … here.” It was the most he could say.

He packed slowly and headed out much the same, his boots dragging heavy in the snow. He would need to add a second coat of wax, he thought in a distant way. Though he was aware of his soaking boots, he no longer felt them. He did not feel much of anything. If he did not have Roach to attend to, he did not think he would bother going the rest of the way up the pass. He did not wish to be on any mountains now. But he would do his duty by her, let her rest in her stable and feed her warm oats, let her grow fat and contented for the winter. He would mind Vesemir and patch the crumbling keep. He would present himself to Eskel and Lambert to mark another year without death, then drown himself in white gull to rein in the start of the season.

The tallest stone stood out over the curve of the path, signaling the arrival of the gate. As they approached, Geralt could begin to see the towers of Kaer Morhen appear. His room was there, the window looking back down at him. He often wished he might see a familiar figure looking out from it, waiting for him, ready to wave him home again. How he longed to see Jaskier searching the path for him after a hunt in midwinter, or looking down at him and his brothers as they sparred in the courtyard. But the window was empty as ever, a black blot against the grey sky, the monochrome world of white below.

But there was something strange about the snow behind the gate.

The flurries in the air did not fall down, but drifted on the updraft. They were lighter, strange. And as he looked, he realized they were not flurries at all, for it no longer snowed. He dropped Roach’s reins and stumbled forward. They were dandelion seeds.

Something shifted upright among them. Soft brown hair ruffled in the wind. Geralt saw the same familiar backside he’d faced a thousand times before in the silence of evening as he lay awake in his bedroll. The head turned first left, then right, swaying slightly as it looked about. It rose, stumbling, and fell like a newborn foal.

“Jaskier?” Geralt breathed.

Blue eyes looked back at him. The word stuck, but it was spoken in that same crooning, beautiful, melodic, annoying, intolerable, perfect voice. “Geralt?” Jaskier called.

Geralt had his arms around him in a second. Jaskier buckled under the weight and they went flying back into the snow. Geralt crushed Jaskier in his embrace, reaching for every bit of him he could hold. His breath shuddered in his chest as he breathed him in. He sat up, feeling his shoulders, his face, confirming the bulk of him beneath as something real, not imagined. Then he collapsed again, rocking Jaskier in his arms as he swallowed back the little sounds that threatened to catch in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt chanted over and over. “I’m sorry, Jaskier. I’m so sorry.”

Jaskier wrapped his hands around Geralt’s back, hooking his chin over his shoulder. His breath was warm against Geralt’s frozen ear. “I know. I heard you.” He shushed Geralt, running his hands over his sides comfortingly. “I’m here,” he said.

“I didn’t mean it—any of it.”

Jaskier hummed quietly. “None?” he asked.

“None.”

“What about the part where you said you loved me?”

Geralt slowly ceased his rocking. He kept a hand on the back of Jaskier’s head and stared out over the snow. “I … didn’t mean what I said on the mountain. The wish. I meant the rest,” he mumbled.

“Hm.”

Geralt knew that particular ‘hm’ well enough, having hummed it himself countless times. He pulled back, his hands trailing down Jaskier’s arms until he clasped their hands together. “I meant it,” he answered, looking Jaskier in the eye at last.

Jaskier sighed and it was an ancient sound, one of unfathomable release. “I know.”

“Was that enough?” Geralt asked. “Is that why you came back?”

Jaskier smiled. He shook his head.

And Geralt frowned. “Then what?”

Jaskier closed his eyes and leaned forward, pressing his head to the crook of Geralt’s shoulder. “I remembered. When I went back. I understand the reason I was born.” He detached himself, looking at Geralt with a new tenderness, one with a clarity that had never been there before. There was something in his smile, a trueness that he could never afford before. There was no hesitation, no trace of burden behind it like the shadow of his fate to restrain it. It was happiness, whole and untethered. Unyielding.

“I still have a wish to grant,” he said.

Geralt’s brow furrowed with confusion. “You already granted a wish. You disappeared, just as you said you would.”

“No. You asked the wish of life, not of me. It was not my wish to grant.” Jaskier wrapped his arms around Geralt’s neck, pulling him close once more. He buried his fingers in the hair at Geralt’s nape and turned his head.

“I was sent to test mankind,” he said. “They wished to see what man would do with the gift of a wish. When weighed against the life of another, what would they find it worth? What would they ask that would outweigh the loss of a stranger? But … I’d forgotten. When I awoke in the world, I did not remember the burden I was given. By the time I remembered, I’d been down too long, had become something more. I learned to want and wish for myself.

"And then you came along,” he laughed. His fingers curled in Geralt’s hair, stroking and steadying. “You came, you travelled at my side, wishing nothing from me but myself.”

“But if it was not my wish, if you did not grant it, why did you disappear?” Geralt asked. He felt the warmth of Jaskier around him, the steady beat of his heart, yet he was afraid even now that he would vanish once more. He held him tighter, as if the very act of pondering would make it come to fruition.

“They interpreted your outburst as a rejection of their gift. They thought the burden of having to choose a wish was too much for you—that you were asking to be rid of the test. You might find it in yourself to feel flattered once you’ve had a chance to digest it all; they thought you were very noble for surrendering such a power.”

Geralt scoffed. “Then they’re idiots,” he grumbled.

Jaskier laughed again, louder this time, a laugh them shook them both. “Yes, generally speaking, they are.” He was the one to pull away next, though he kept his hands as they were, fingers carding through Geralt’s hair affectionately, one hand braced around his shoulders. “When you begged for my return,” he continued, “they thought you regretted giving up your wish.”

“That’s not—”

“I know. But you must remember: they’re idiots.”

Geralt chuckled. He settled his hands at Jaskier’s waist, just holding him. “So?” he prompted.

“It was the last that did it. For all the rest, you might have still had me returned for a wish. You might take me to the coast, let me have a final hurrah, just to relieve the guilt of trading me for a wish. ‘I’m tired, I did not see what was in front of me,’ blah blabbity blah; your vagueness left a _lot_ open for interpretation.” Jaskier flicked Geralt’s forehead. “Ass. You could have spared the both of us a lot of waiting by being direct.”

Geralt rubbed the spot, but Jaskier pushed his hand away and kissed it. His heart thrummed in his chest. “And when I said I loved you …”

“They knew that you would not make a wish,” Jaskier concluded. “If you made a wish, I would be gone, and I would not be left for you to love. Because what you want, all you want in this world, given one wish without a string … is me. For me.”

“And … can I keep you?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier flushed a happy tinge of pink. “That’s the wish I’ve come to grant.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said. He cupped Jaskier’s face in his hands, his eyes hardened. “Is this the fulfillment of a wish?” he asked. His tone was serious, betraying the worry in his heart. “Are you still Dandelion or have you come as yourself? Tell me now: is this a wish … that _you_ wish?”

“Geralt.” Jaskier removed his hands, clutched them tight to his chest. He leaned forward and kissed the corner of Geralt’s mouth. The words were warm against Geralt’s skin as Jaskier spoke. “Don’t call me Dandelion,” he said, smiling. “I’m not a thing, you know. I’m a man; a man of flesh and blood and freewill. And my name is Jaskier.”

And that was the end of it. Geralt pulled Jaskier to him. He kissed him. He kissed him until he remembered what it felt like to breathe the crisp, cool air. And Jaskier kissed him as laughter—hysteric, euphoric laughter—bubbled in the back of his throat.

“So _this_ is the famous bard Geralt whines about every year.”

They pulled away and saw two figures striding across the yard towards them. The smug one spoke again, nodding towards the two on the ground.

“You couldn’t keep it in your pants long enough to get in the door proper?”

“Shut up, Lambert,” Geralt growled.

Jaskier laughed, falling back in the snow. Geralt noticed that there was no longer any trace of the dandelion patch beneath him.

The other wolf extended a hand to help the bard to his feet. “Eskel,” he said by way of introduction. “So you would be Jaskier. You dress as impractically as he says. Nice though.”

“How are you not freezing in all that white?” Lambert asked, poking at his costume.

Geralt noticed for the first time that Jaskier had not appeared in the doublet he’d worn last on the mountain. Instead, he was cloaked in white from head to toe. The silhouette was familiar, sleeves puffed and paned like so many other doublets he wore, but there was a marked difference. The shoulders were soft, covered in a down like feathers. And Geralt chuckled. He looked like the fuzzy head of a dandelion lost among the snow.

“You look like you’re dressed for a wedding,” Eskel commented, admiring the fine pattern woven in the cloth. “A very _fine_ wedding. And you the groom.”

Jaskier turned to wink at Geralt. “I just may be,” he replied.

Geralt caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. Yes. He just might be.

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from tumblr for one convenient, easy, all-in-one read.
> 
> On tumblr:  
> https://rebrandedbard.tumblr.com/post/645798190148403200/rebrandedbard-dandelion-geralt-repeated


End file.
